Europeanization of turkish subnational administrations

7.4. CONCLUSION

The first two stages of subnational mobilisation, growing awareness and changes in organizational arrangements, were the main themes for this chapter. These have been largely overlooked in the extant literature, though this research takes them as preliminary elements for a shift towards the multi-level modality. The obvious reason is that in the absence of a strong pull effect and adaptational pressures, the bottom-up mechanism (awareness about the EU opportunities as well as organizational capacity) and voluntary mechanism (horizontal Europeanization) may stimulate SNAs to move towards the third and fourth stage of subnational mobilisation. Nonetheless, a growing awareness and changes in organizational arrangements are usually a product of the EU’s financial incentives as these funds provide the initial attachment with the Europeanization process at subnational level. Consequently, the chapter has taken the redistributive policies and pre-accession funds as an empirical focus, which has a top-down effect as in the case of first generation Europeanization.

What the empirical findings have suggested is that the increasing recognition of the Europeanization at subnational level has been manifested in three main areas of subnational activity. First, there has been a growing awareness and recognition of the impact of the EU on the day-to-day politics of SNAs. Second, there has been a multiplicity in sources of information as well as an increase in project generation capacity on a subnational level. Third, a number of SNAs have become increasingly proactive in seeking to maximise the benefits, particularly the amount of EU financial incentives, accruing to their areas by recruiting staff and creating posts. Accordingly, the overall picture represented in these survey findings reveals that most SNAs become involved with EU matters by employing staff, creating EU offices and disseminating EU procedures and policies inside the organization. This suggests that a number of organizations have already started to climb the ladder that was argued by John. This indicates the financially orientated stage of Europeanization on the latter metaphor (see Chapter 4).

The Europeanization process not only advances redistributive programs, such as financial assistance, but also regulative policies, such as environmental policy. Whereas the regulative policies affect SNAs in a similar way, the impact of redistributive programs varies among SNAs. To exploit EU opportunities, SNAs, particularly those in the eligible areas, have adjusted their organizational logic with new departments, new personnel as well as programming capacity. Organizational changes, however, have not equally manifested in all SNAs. Whereas the adaptation process is high and swift in some SNAs, it may be low and incremental for others. Even in some cases, it is non-existent. However, it is still difficult to argue that EU issues were dealt with in an organized and systematic manner. Whilst several SNAs have been dealing with European matters in an organized fashion, most still operate in a reactive rather than a proactive way, with the result that there is still room for the development of activity on this front.

How active an SNA is likely to be is largely a result of its eligibility for European funding, its organizational structure and its political commitment to European involvement. Being eligible does not mean that those SNAs have adjusted themselves properly in line with the EU standards and that they are ready to absorb these funds and administer them efficiently. During the initial years, SNAs used consultant companies but then they have learned how to adapt themselves to the process of Europeanization. Yet this is generally a case of thin learning as they only want to benefit from these funds. Accordingly, their adjustment has not brought about a radical change to their organizational logic as the change was on the margin in order to benefit from the EU incentives. Furthermore, both in terms of general activity and of collecting information, SNAs are likely to be passive or reactive rather than proactive. They largely depend on official sources or government departments for information. This is a case for the top-down effect of Europeanization rather than bottom-up response to exploit the EU opportunities.

It has also become apparent that the perception of SNAs on EU matters may change over time in response to perceived opportunities for action in the EU arena, or other structural factors (e.g. the nature of EU-Turkish relations or change in foreign policy dynamics). Before the EU fund programs, while the EU issue was on the local agenda in some rich and culturally developed cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, by the impetus of EU financial incentives, the effects of Europeanization extended its reach to the more rural and less developed cities. Accordingly, the EU was no longer having an impact on a few high profile SNAs, rather the EU affairs appeared on the agenda of several low profile SNAs. However, the lower credibility of EU membership has caused a number of SNAs to feel that they are not part of EU politics and may not be in the near future. This correspondingly affects the shift of those SNAs from being active to passive or counteractive groups. For instance, during the proto-Europeanization period, a number of SNAs supported EU activities and underwent a rapid organizational change. By the Alaturka Europeanization period, they had reverted back to more sceptical positions. This confirms that EU adaptation is often tactical and symbolic, and that it largely depends on structural factors. Particularly, with the decreasing EU membership perspective during the Alaturka Europeanization period as well as the political and economic instability in the EU, the counteractive group has increasingly grown. In this respect, a number of counteractive SNAs have stepped back down on the ladder and therefore their adaptation to the Europeanization process has become minimal. This highlighted the importance of temporality for the Europeanization and multi-level governance research.

Overall, despite the incremental adjustments and the low credibility of EU membership, one may argue that organizational changes may result in driving SNAs to learn from the experiences of other institutions and follow their patterns in the future. It may be reductionist to claim that the organizational capacity in the sense of financial and human sources, information and leadership determines the success in mobilisation across the EU arena. Together with the intermediating factors at national and subnational levels, the organizational capacity may determine the degree and direction of subnational mobilisation. The next chapter puts more emphasis on the last two stages of subnational mobilisation, transnational activities and vertical mobilisation. These stages should have voluntary mechanisms as well as a bottom-up push, as suggested by second generation Europeanization.